Shareef Allman arrived for his 4 a.m. shift Wednesday at the quarry a few minutes late, said good morning to the guys, and like he always did, poured himself a cup of coffee and punched the time clock. But this time, after listening to the small talk of a morning meeting, he pulled a handgun out of his sweatshirt and began firing at the dozen men, said one of his targets.

Mike Ambrosio felt the burning heat of a bullet shoot through his right arm as he dove under a plastic table. When the bullets were gone and the room was already splattered with blood and bodies, Ambrosio said he played dead and peeked out as Allman grabbed an AK-47 assault rifle he had left just outside the door, and started firing again.

"He thought everybody was after him," Ambrosio said in an exclusive interview Wednesday afternoon with the Mercury News. "He wasn't thinking no more."

Ambrosio, a union leader and truck driver who has worked for 16 years at Lehigh Hanson's Permanente Cement Plant in Cupertino, recounted the five- to eight-minute predawn rampage that left three of his co-workers dead, including a cousin whom he had helped get the job, and five injured.

"You guys want to (expletive) with me? You want to (expletive) with me?" Ambrosio recalled Allman angrily saying as he shot his co-workers.

"Everyone was jumping under the table. Some sitting at the table were shot in the stomach," Ambrosio recalled.

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For a moment, Ambrosio thought maybe he should wrestle the shooter. "He's way stronger than I am. No one had a chance."

Allman, a 6-foot-1, 47-year-old boxer and weightlifter, a man who preached peaceful conflict resolution in a series of public access TV shows he produced, fired away in the confines of the quarry's trailer, Ambrosio said.

Lying under the table, Ambrosio covered his face with his bleeding arm and pretended he was dead. When the gunfire stopped, Allman stooped to look under the table "to make sure I was dead," Ambrosio said.

"I had blood coming out of my arm. He probably thought it was my head," said Ambrosio, who was treated at a hospital and sent home Wednesday afternoon with a sling around his arm.

Allman had worked at the plant for 15 years. While he was respected by his wide circle of friends in San Jose's African-American community, he had a poor performance record at the company, Ambrosio said. Allman felt as though the company, and some of his co-workers, were out to get him, Ambrosio said. Two weeks earlier, Allman had refused to pose for a photo with his colleagues at the plant, saying, "I don't want to take my picture with back stabbers."

Before the shooting began Wednesday, a supervisor was leading the weekly meeting, which included a discussion about rescheduling a farewell party for another employee. Allman piped up, Ambrosio said: "If we ain't gonna have no party, give me my $10 back." Then Allman "pulled out the gun and started."

The supervisor, who was standing, was the first to go down after being shot three times, Ambrosio said. The Mercury News is not naming the supervisor because a reporter could not reach him or his family. He was sent to Stanford University Hospital where he remained late Wednesday. An additional eight men sitting in plastic chairs around the tables -- all truck drivers -- were hit as they tried to scramble to safety, including Ambrosio and his cousin Manuel Pinon.

"Why are you doing this?" some of the men asked as they tried to duck the bullets.

Ambrosio, 45, said he knew the answer as he lay bleeding under the table. If Allman wanted any of his co-workers dead, it might have been him.

The rampage came less than a week after Ambrosio confronted Allman, telling him that as his union shop steward, he would no longer represent him to management over the numerous safety violations he was accused of committing.

"He's had so many accidents and always said that because he's African-American, the company was after him," Ambrosio said. "He was an unsafe driver." Ambrosio said Allman had turned over a truck and snagged overhead wires when he left the truck bed in the air.

Last Thursday, Ambrosio told Allman that "no one has ever had so many accidents in the company like you have."

Ambrosio set up a meeting Monday morning with management, telling officials that Allman's safety record was so bad, his driving so reckless, that "the workers weren't safe."

Company officials, Ambrosio said, responded by encouraging his fellow drivers to document any further problems.

"The workers were tired of complaining and the company not doing anything," Ambrosio said.

A voice message left with a company spokesman was not immediately returned Wednesday.

Somebody must have told Allman about the meeting, Ambrosio said, because on Tuesday morning, Allman seemed to be an exemplary employee.

"He was working like he should be," Ambrosio said. "He was on the ball."